Reviewing Opera 8

I'm a long time Opera aficionado and everytime they launch each full new version I must admit it takes time to "move in", sort out the skins find out where things have moved etc. O8 seems to have moved the game on with its voice commands, but i've not used them beyond fooling around with the system, mouse gestures are simpler and quicker for moving around. Beyond that there's appears to be little radically different over 7.54, with the biggest thing for me being full Gmail support.

Surprise me, finding this thread via my Opera8 Feeds menu. :-)

O8 is in many respects like O7.54x, with the addition of a few things and a more usable interface in some respects (e.g., the Feeds button on the File/Edit menu, the Trash Can list of sites visited in that session). It just seems more elegantly put together. I've also noted that the WordPress Admin interface, which was a little messed up (as to placement of elements) in earlier versions of Opera is now corrected.

Given that I can so like a particular version of a piece of software what I may *not* upgrade (and this was very true of O7.54), I'll say I switched to O8 within a day or so. I'm happy, because there's just too much convenient added functionality to give up.

As to voice, I installed something or other which *did* speak, but I take it I missed something along the way ... or perhaps the sites I visited were not correctly set up. That doesn't sound right, though, so perhaps I'll look into it more later.

Upgraded to O8 as soon as I could find a mirror that wasn't too full :D

I installed straight over the top of my 7.54 version, and it picked up my skins, settings, email all fine, at first glance, there wasn't a lot of difference to be honest.

There was the 'x' on each tab, but like Diane, I kind of prefer having the 3 buttons in the top right of each tab window (though if I could get both options on at the same time that'd be even better), and it is noticably faster than version 7.

Other than that, I'm probably not using it a whole lot differently. In order to follow feeds from home and work I use Bloglines for that. I only use M2 for my personal email at home. The voice commands are alright, but I'm not going to try learning them over mouse gestures. Plus it feels a bit odd sitting at a computer saying "Opera do whatever" when there's no one else about, and you just sound weird if there are other people around.... It doesn't seem wonderfully keen on my West Country accent either, heh. Gotta try and talk proper English :P
The voice stuff could be useful in some scenarios though I'm sure.

Working Gmail is nice, but not a huge deal for me, the only thing I use gmail for is stuff that I either don't want cluttering up my main email accounts in M2, or stuff that I do want to be able to access from different places.

Opera mouse gesture still rock much more than any of the Firefox attempts I've tried.

The only downside is that using Opera on 2Mbit connections means I'm not getting fed up of the lag between requesting a page and it actually downloading and rending it. People need faster serves and the responses need to be quicker, this setups making me damn impatient, heh.
Seriously though, that lag often makes up something like 75% of the loading time on a half decent spec machine, fast connection and Opera rendering it all lighting quick.

Oh, and as I bought Opera7 and got the ads removed, I was pleased to note that upgrading the installation to O8 didn't make them reappear and ask me for more money. Wouldn't complain too much about some kind of nominal upgrade fee, but nicer that it wasn't required :)

I think I bought Opera around v.5 or 6, so I've been having the full benefits since then. (But don't use the email program.)

Being wary of upgrades of *anything*, I installed in a new directory and had to go through configuring it again, though I did find that I was able to copy certain things from folder to folder.

I love when the O8 Feed reader thing checks TW on schedule and alerts me (via a slide-up notification) that there are new threads. This is exactly how I think a browser feed reader should work. Heck, I could set it to check every five minutes -- and really make Nick crazy.